Burn, Baby Burn.....

.....Tar Sands Inferno

WellYouCanTellByTheWayIUseMyWalk
I'mAnOilManNoTimeToTalkVille


Billmon has the goods on the Rovian reaction to the skyrocketing rise in the price of Oil, at least in the short term:

Oil hit $78 a barrel today (Friday), and Bloomberg News is quoting analysts saying it could soon go to $100. As of this writing, the Dow is down 130 points. The Japanese, with their usual exquisite sense of timing, just raised interest rates for the first time in the professional lives of many Wall Street traders. Retail sales are down, consumer confidence is down. In other words, the financial markets are having another very bad, horrible, no good day -- as is the Cheney administration.....

{snip}

For the Rovians, it's a nightmarish dilemma: Do they pander shamelessly to the Israel lobby and its Christian conservative supporters (the default election-year position) or do they try to keep the Israelis, and the global oil markets, under some kind of adult supervision, even if it leaves Charlie Krauthammer sputtering with rage? You can already see the sweat popping out on Condi Rice's forehead.


Well, actually, there is an easier way, of course*.

And the path to this easy 'third way' can be seen in the numbers, US Department of Energy numbers to be precise.

Crude (US) Oil Imports (Top 15 Countries) (Thousand Barrels per Day)
Country	May-06	Apr-06	YTD 2006	May-05	Jan - May 2005
CANADA	1,877	1,710	1,757	1,722	1,586
MEXICO	1,576	1,601	1,668	1,748	1,559
SAUDI ARABIA	1,457	1,582	1,422	1,430	1,512
VENEZUELA	1,169	1,171	1,186	1,273	1,336
NIGERIA	1,075	1,022	1,134	1,111	1,046
IRAQ	666	531	533	588	536

Funny how high Canuckistan is on that list compared to, oh say, Iraq.

Or even the House of Saud.

And just to be clear, despite the fact that we are lengthening our lead month-by-month, these are all pre-Tar Sands numbers.

Kind of makes you wonder why they haven't just annexed Alberta already, doesn't it?

Luckily for us, as has been recently demonstrated by the Minister now responsible for 'Giving Our Billions to Boeing' and his tough-as-nails negotiating skills, we know we have a government that will never, ever knuckle under and hand the Cheney Administration a trouble-free soft Anschluss.

So everybody just relax, and don't worry about the fact that Carlyle Group and friends already have a deal in the works to get hold of the pipelines to the coast.

OK?

____
To be fair, Billmon has written about the soft anschluss before. It's just that I don't have time to find it this morning because I'm currently a folk festival widow and I've got more important things to do, apparently.

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